Treehouse (More Poetic Mediocrity)

 Climbing the tree 

Climbing the tree in my pink skirt

(someone taught me skirts were ideal for every day's climbing)

strong branches with ample footing

filling my shirt with as many ripe purples ones as I could find

before descending

where I knew you'd be waiting

to share the figs

Did you know about fig leaves?

It is a wonder Eve and Adam chose this leaf

(I pity them now more than I had before)

They itch.

I learned this as the minutes accumulated

each sticky itchy spot 

transferred to my body

worth every pound of figs

I hope Eden's expats walked away with several pounds

before the gates closed behind them and their itchy underwear.

a woman picking apples from the tree out our window

My New Home

There's an apple tree a-front my house, 

a guava tree behind.  

I climbed the wooden ladder

twisted 

and pulled myself a snack.

Last night the man who advises neighborhood organizations

advised us on Marxism
I got "infastructura" and "superstructura"

and forces of labor

but not much else.

This is a country of revolutionaries

a people of who've struggled for livelihood 

despite 500 years of colonial or (casi)-colonial rule

Here I am a student of everything

Even yesterday's advisor articulated that marxism 

in ideology 

is different than marxism 

embodied

(Yes, I understood that part too)

A marxist equality in salary means something different to me

than to the woman selling my papayas

and growing my coca

living on $2

a day.

I will tell you also

that I almost adore the leak 

in my bedroom ceiling.

I've made good friends with the blue plastic bowl

who catches drips

and only comes out to play 

when the rain is tan fuerte

The rain that sings the most lovely song I know 

sobre el techo

(the song my lover once sang to me).

Meanwhile the distant kind sounds of love being made

(don't tell them I'm writing this)

Is there not something good --when you pass quickly by any discomfort--

of a couple renewing their vows in breath and touch

while their hija sleeps by the side

That is a home.

So I sit here saying Bless them, Bless them, Bless them.

A couple clips of rehearsing in our living room for Desde los Sueños.  The bad singer who joins at the end is me, trying to learn the song!